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In Panama the black people are actually ahead of the usual mixed race Latino Panamanian. I noticed it in Panama and I asked a couple of black guys why. I was told that there was two main reasons for it. Most of the black people came to Panama as workers on the canal when it was being built. They came mostly from Jamacia and spoke English. They had also a desire for education that they had gotten from the English culture in Jamacia. This has persisted to this day and many of them are well educated and speak English and Spanish. This puts them into the middle class.
I spent a couple of days wandering around the most posh areas of Panama city and I saw who the real top of the food chain is. Blue eyed, blond haired folks driving around town in their Rolls, BMW's and other very expensive cars. All of them seemed to be 100% white Euros.
My daughter inlaw is from way down south,,Chile...very surprised how liberals she is...but I guess after making 30 thousand people disappear back in the early seventies..they could in effect cherry pick the types of citizens they wanted after the so-called socialist revolution...You can not make a bad joke around her regarding race...funny the kids last girl friend was from Guatemala ...Both of these women look white but don't think they are...but they want to be percieved as white...when they think they are black...but they look as white as snow to me....>>I don't get it....
I was dating a Brazilian woman and we went to a presentation on racism in Brazil at the local university's Latin American Studies center. The presenter was a Black Brazilian and was giving his presentation on Brazilian racism when one of the, perhaps twenty, audience members, a White Brazilian, started yelling at the presenter. At first a word or two, very defiant, then a string of shouts and finally the guy got up and started throttling the presenter. Basically, a brief but violent fight broke out.
When the dust settled, I asked my GF exactly what happened since I don't understand much Portuguese, she explained that the White guy was very adamantly denying the existence of racism in Brazil and was accusing the Black guy of being a communist traitor trying to disrupt the social and racial harmony of Brazil.
In other words, in the workworld, things seem very segregated with the better jobs going to european-descent. However, socially, a completely different world. Everyone hangs out with everyone else, without such division of friendships on race.
In short, I don't think anywhere in South America, there is much 'equality' on a structural level. But socially, people don't avoid anyone else because of skin color.
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In Cuba is just the same, all jobs and positions that generate hard currency (except musicians) are occupied by whites.
Blacks and white are segregated in the upper echelons of societies, even in places where blacks are the blatant majority. Not among the populace, though as they say there "cada oveja con su pareja" (Like seeks like).
In places where whites are hard to find, people with the lightest skin occupy top positions.
The worse places for blacks in Cuba are large areas of some provinces where peasants are traditionally very racist. In those places, top communist authorities (Poder Popular) make life tougher than usual to blacks and mulattoes.
Um, I cannot say I have never been to Cuba. But I live in Miami and the white cubans are some of the most racist people I have ever met (and many were from the island or their parents were) But like I said I have never been there.
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I've been in the two places and I visit Cuba frequently. White Cubans in Miami are "progressive" and "Affirmative Action Extremists" compared to White Cubans in Cuba.
The reason is that Castro used blacks to attack whites at the beginning of the revolution. Later he used blacks to occupy white areas of the country (Havana and western Cuba) that were not sympathetic to the communist revolution (Tibetanización).
During the first years of the revolution, whites that had not a communist or revolutionary background were descriminated upon and relegated. They were considered to be "worms" and "spies" of the Empire. Blacks were promoted to top positions.
But time put people in their right places, and after four of five years all blacks were in disfavour and by the 1970's there were no blacks in any significant position.
Such actions perpretrated by Castro generated a lot of hatred between the two races that did not exist before. Other dictatorships used similar schemes, for example, Ceausescu used Gypsies, Saddam Hussein used Christians, etc.
In Miami, people are influenced by Civil Rights and Affirmative Action, and some of the Icons of the exiled community are blacks, such as the deceased Celia Cruz.
Being an American who lived in Brazil, and later explored Spanish-speaking South America as well...it is very very different.
Brazil: Friendships and socially and everything else...everyone mixes with everyone. You don't see a group of 5 white guys at one table, and 5 black guys at another table, like is common in the US, where they aren't intermixed socially so much.
However, WORK WORLD. In the US, I've always seen African-Americans at EVERY LEVEL...tons of bosses, just everything. When I was teaching in Brazil, regularly I only saw light-skinned Brazilians of european-descent with most of the office jobs. Almost never saw a black brazilian in an office setting - I was teaching English going in and out of corporate offices. I met one light-skinned black guy, who was so pale but with black features. He use to thank God all the time his skin was so light, as he said he'd never had got that job. He wasn't complaining about it, just being thankful about it all the time.
In other words, in the workworld, things seem very segregated with the better jobs going to european-descent. However, socially, a completely different world. Everyone hangs out with everyone else, without such division of friendships on race.
In short, I don't think anywhere in South America, there is much 'equality' on a structural level. But socially, people don't avoid anyone else because of skin color.
less than 7% of the paulistanos are black, almost all big cities in America have more black population.
My daughter inlaw is from way down south,,Chile...very surprised how liberals she is...but I guess after making 30 thousand people disappear back in the early seventies..they could in effect cherry pick the types of citizens they wanted after the so-called socialist revolution...You can not make a bad joke around her regarding race...funny the kids last girl friend was from Guatemala ...Both of these women look white but don't think they are...but they want to be percieved as white...when they think they are black...but they look as white as snow to me....>>I don't get it....
pinochet was the one who engaged in mass murder in chile and he was an arch conservative ( and good friend of margaret thatcher btw ) , your confusing pinochet with salvadore allande , the democratically elected socilist president who was outsted in a coup by pinochet with the backing of the usa
It was far more complex than all of that. Let's say that it was an episode of the Cold War.
or in other words , the chileans were pawns in a global chess game between the usa and thier ( enemy ) and paid the price for voting for the ( wrong ) side
so much for soverign integrity eh
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